Employee Caught Robbing Houses With Work Truck

Police in Sherburne County, MN, began to suspect Sin Santo Bad was behind a string of residential burglaries when a witness reported seeing a vehicle with the license plate “BAD SIN” parked outside a house while it was being burglarized. The license plate “BAD SIN” was registered to Bad’s personal vehicle.

Sheriff deputies later received permission from one of the owners of the potato processing company where Bad worked to put a GPS tracking device on a company-owned pick-up truck. The GPS tracking device allowed officers to monitor the truck’s location and movements, but it did not transmit conversations from inside the truck or show the truck’s contents.

In September 2009, a company employee called the sheriff’s office to report that Bad was going to be using the company-owned truck for work that day.

Deputies used the GPS tracking device to follow the truck as it went to a landfill to drop off scrap metal. The truck then entered a residential neighborhood and pulled into two driveways, stopping briefly in each before moving to a third driveway. Officers then approached the residence and saw the truck parked in a place that was not visible from the road.

Police walked in as Bad was cleaning out a safe. Officers entered the residence and found Bad standing near an open safe, with $4,300 in cash in his pants pocket.

Bad was convicted of burglary and sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2011. Bad appealed and this week the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled in the state’s favor, upholding Bad’s conviction.